For many years I have used 7 pin plugs and sockets for the lights on my trailers. The main problem I encounter is corrosion on the socket, as I don't use it very often, maybe one or twice a year.
Now they have invented a 13 pin system, and it appears that if I buy a VW manufacturers electric kit, it only comes with a 13 pins socket. I could order a Witter 7 pin kit, but it is very expensive - £211.20
So should I just start using 13 pins? Anyone got any experience of these?
They are the continental standard and have been around for many years. You can get 13 pin to 7 pin or 2 x 7 pin adaptors to use them with UK plugs.
13 pin have been around for at least a decade and are the defacto standard now. You can get an adaptor block plug that converts to 7 pin trailer, so that should be the easiest solution.
I believe since 2012, it is a legal requirement for new trailers to have the reversing light which the 7 pin type N cannot provide so there's another reason to favour the 13 pin.
Or stick a 13 pin plug on your trailers (it's just a subset of pins).
The pins on a 13-pin connector are smaller diameter (in order to fit them into the same diameter of connector) which could in theory limit the amount of current that you can draw. In practice, I don't think it's an issue as long as the pins and contacts are not corroded.
We had a towbar and 7-pin electrics fitted to our car for the bike rack that we had at the time. We've since got a newer, lighter, tilting rack which happens to have 13-pin electrics. All we needed to do was to buy a 7-to-13 converter.
I fitted a Vauxhall 13 pin kit to mine as it was only £85 and was the same as the witter one. It integrates into the canbus so it knows if there is a trailer and if the lights are faulty.
I use one of these
To plug in my trailer board for my bike rack and tiny trailer.
You can get cheaper ones these days if you search on amazon.
If I had a caravan I would fit a 13pin plug to it as they are far better.
Intriguingly our older bike rack has reversing lights in the light cluster but no way to power them since it has a 7-pin plug fitted.
Why do both standards have separate pins for left and right tail lights. Aren't both tail lights always powered simultaneously as soon as you turn the side lights switch on? How do you turn on one side without the other, to warrant two separate pins in the connector.
on a previous car - possibly my 1971 Cortina Mk3 = the side lights weere separately wired so that they could be used as one side parking lights, controlled by the indicator switch. Two circuits might be a hangover from this convention - which is, I think - now illegal
I don't think its illegal, however if you are required to have parking lights they don't satisfy the law so using them where you need parking lights would be illegal. You can use them when you don't legally need to if it makes things safer.
Ah. I wonder if that's it. As far as I know, none of my cars (Renault 5 Marks 1 and 2, VW Golfs Mark 2 and 3, Peugeot 306 and 308) have had that feature. But then as I always turn off the indicator when I park (part of the "post-flight drill" that includes waggle gear lever to make sure it's in neutral, put handbrake on, turn engine off) I'd probably never have noticed it even if the car did have that feature.
I'm always amazed that having only one rear fog light is legal, given that in thick fog the fog lights take over from the tail lights as defining the car's width. My previous cars have come with only the off-side foglight fitting having a bulb, so I added one on the nearside to make sure all the lights were doubled, as for brake and tail. The latest one has only a red light on the offside, and only a reversing light on the nearside which makes it a pain trying to reverse at night and there's no light illuminating the hedge/gate-post/wall on the offside (I put my fog light on to light up that side!). I was once stopped in a marked turn-right lane in the middle of the road, indicating right, in thick fog. I saw a car come speeding up behind me (going far too fast) and swerve at the last minute, presumably when he saw my much dimmer tail light and realised that I wasn't a motorbike after all.
I knew someone who was killed when he cycled into a skip that had been parked on the road, illuminated only by a red light on the offside. The inquest suggested that he may have mistaken it for a motorbike parked facing the oncoming traffic (ie on the RHS of the road) and aimed for the unlit side which he thought was clear road.
having learned to drive in a hilly arae, I always used to make sure the car was parked in gear. I say "used to" since I now have an automatic and that has a park position - effectively in gear.
Good point. On a steep hill I always park in gear: first if I'm facing uphill and reverse if I'm facing downhill so that the car will always be propelled uphill (which is harder for it to do against the handbrake than downhill) if I try to start in gear - lessens the chance of the car nudging the one next to it.
Mind you, my equivalent "pre-flight" check is to waggle the gear lever to prove it's in neutral before starting the engine. Our new car won't even let you start unless you press the clutch, making it impossible to start in gear. Still need to do the test before you let the clutch up, though :-)
Probably for parking mode...
parking mode I guess...
If the US uses the same scheme, they often use the rear red tail lights as indicators too, although they have allowed European scheme with separate amber indicators for many years now too.
There were a few years when it was only legal to have one rear fog and/or one read reversing light, something to do with not being confused with brake/head lamps. I think this restriction went away when we became subject to EEC vehicle lighting regs. (I can't now remember if this applied to one of both of the rear fog and reversing lights, but it was commonly implemented by having rear for lamp mirrored by reversing lamp in same position on other side.)
In San Francisco, a city of hills, you have to turn your car's wheels so that the car rolls away from the street when you park.
German cars are (or were) all fitted with parking lights. One side and one tail, operated by the indicator switch. Most UK German made cars are too.
Two circuits to fail before both tails lights are off and/or parking lights.
Look at the type S 7 pin trailer connector.
Hum, not sure Iike the idea of the engine being turned backwards should it roll.
And of course if there is a kerb or raised verge you set the steering corectly as well.
Incorrect use of the word "impossible" otherwise the testing for neutral before letting the clutch up after starting second sentance wouldn't be required.
That's because drivers were mistaking brake lights for fog warning lights and driving into stationary traffic.
They decided one fog light was safer as you can't then think two bright lights are fog lights rather than brake lights.
Of course if drivers drove correctly they wouldn't drive into the stationary traffic anyway.
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